I've seen a Shuttle launch but not that of a Saturn V. I'd imagine the Saturn was the more impressive of the two, with its lower thrust-to-weight ratio … F/W is the thrust to weight ratio and it is directly proportional to the acceleration of the aircraft. Thrust has to be greater than the weight of the rocket. A thrust-to-weight ratio of 2 means you're using 50% of your thrust just to overcome Earth's gravity, a thrust-to-weight ratio of 5 means only 20% of your thrust to overcome gravity, and so on. The Space Shuttle was also 85% propellant by mass, using a blend of solids and hydrogen-oxygen for the first stage and hydrogen-oxygen for second. Interesting note: unlike the original, this Saturn V will have approx.

If it’s less than 1, the vehicle can’t lift off.

The Math Thrust = how much force an engine produces. Looking at the graph, it’s important to remember the data are for individual engines, while Merlins are launched in clusters of nine, giving them a collective thrust at about the level of a Saturn V F-1 engine (remember also that the Saturn V itself used a cluster of five F-1s). Quora User gave a great answer. The Saturn V had a takeoff thrust-to-weight ratio of about 1.5. The first stage of the Saturn V had five engines. Logged Space launches attended: I'll see if I can reduce it further into even more "simple terms."

In the engineering world, the ratio between a craft’s thrust and the weight is called, appropriately, thrust-to-weight ratio. The graph also shows us how much of difference fuel choice makes. When the thrust of a rocket or an engine is compared to the weight, it is called the Thrust-to-weight ratio. The Saturn V had a much lower thrust-to-weight ratio than Project Gemini's Titan II GLV. Richard F. Gordon, Jr. described Saturn as "an old man's ride", with "a lot more shake-rattle-and-roll" but milder thrust. (For example, in pounds) Weight = how much the vehicle weighs. pounds of thrust, more than 31 times the total thrust of a 747 jet. At launch, each engine produced about 1,500,000 pounds (or 6,670,000 newtons, the SI unit of force) of thrust. Produces horsepower equivalent to: • 160,000 Corvette engines • 13,400 locomotive engines 10 percent more thrust than the Saturn V at liftoff Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) • If their heat energy could be converted to electric power, the two SRBs firing for 2 minutes A ratio in this case means that the thrust of the engine (in Newtons) is divided by the weight (in Newtons). An aircraft with a high thrust to weight ratio has high acceleration. If it is not, the rocket will sit on the launchpad, not moving, consuming a lot of fuel. In practice gravity varies with altitude and thrust-to-weight ratio changes … The Saturn V rocket on the launch pad was 85% propellant by mass.

For most flight conditions, an aircraft with a high thrust to weight ratio will also have a high value of excess thrust. The number that comes from this comparison does not have any units, because it is a ratio. Thanks for the A2A! 5:1 thrust-to-weight ratio, so it should head skyward in a 'rapid fashion' ! It had three stages; the first using kerosene-oxygen and the second and third stages using hydrogen-oxygen.

The thrust-to-weight ratio of a rocket, or rocket-propelled vehicle, is an indicator of its acceleration expressed in multiples of gravitational acceleration g. [6]Rockets and rocket-propelled vehicles operate in a wide range of gravitational environments, including the weightless environment.